Meghan Markle, British actress?

Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a duchess has a new role, two actors have a meeting, and Jordyn Woods and Karl-Anthony Towns have what looks to be a really nice wedding.

It was the People.com exclusive heard ‘round the world: On Wednesday, the tabloid reported that Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Sussex, and their two children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, are moving back to Britain. With haste! They have reportedly already enrolled the kids in school for September and are setting up a “private, non-royal home base” in the country. Why? Hunter Harris and I tried to put a finger on that yesterday — you can catch up here. Suffice it to say that H&M seem to be running out of career opportunities in California and King Charles photo opportunities in England at the same rapid clip. Off they go!

What hasn’t been explained in the myriad of tabloid stories about this unexpected move is what Harry and Meg plan to do once they get there. In the initial People report, a source mused that “Harry will be able to spend more time with charities including Scotty’s Little Soldiers and WellChild, as well as the Invictus community.” Aha. I guess that leaves it up to Meghan to make the money, and goddammit if she isn’t going to try: Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety are now all reporting that she is in advanced discussions to play a role in the as-yet-to-be-announced third season of Netflix’s Guy Ritchie drama The Gentlemen, which shoots in the U.K.

This would be Meg’s first acting job since she left Suits at the beginning of 2018. She did reportedly film a cameo in the Amazon rom-com Close Personal Friends last year (the premiere date for that one has yet to be announced). It went well, a source revealed to People at the time: “She introduced herself to everyone and was very sweet and down-to-earth.”

I really think H&M should just become working royals again — they were good at it! But Meg is also good at acting (?) I’ve never actually watched her in anything scripted (unless you count her Netflix lifestyle show, but of course that was very freeform and authentic).

If Meg really does end up on The Gentlemen, my heart goes out to the show’s current stars Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, and Daniel Ings — they’ll never be asked about anything but her for the rest of their lives.

If Meghan and Harry can change their minds, Ben Affleck and J.Lo can too, right? I felt another glimmer of hope yesterday when I saw these paparazzi photos of Affleck and Lopez exiting the same West Hollywood office building:

According to the paps, “when Jennifer arrived at the building, Ben‘s purple Cadillac car was parked nearby and in clear sight for her to see.”

The tabloids are framing this as a coincidental run-in, but what if Ben and Jen were meeting up on purpose? That’s the reality I’d like to live in. I also liked Keke Palmer’s review of J.Lo, the person on Amy Poehler’s podcast this week:

STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: I thought Hilary Duff’s tribute to Hayden Panettiere was really nice.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this video from Jordyn Woods and Karl-Anthony Towns’ wedding in Malibu last weekend:

It’s fun to be so straightforwardly happy for a celeb couple. I love them!

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